I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to forward link acknowledgement channels in a wireless communications system.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as, for example, voice, data, and so on. Typical wireless communication systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, . . . ). Examples of such multiple-access systems may include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, and the like.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems may simultaneously support communication for multiple mobile devices. Each mobile device may communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from base stations to mobile devices, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from mobile devices to base stations. Further, communications between mobile devices and base stations may be established via single-input single-output (SISO) systems, multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and so forth.
In such systems, acknowledgement packets can be sent from a base station to a mobile device to indicate that a portion of data was properly received. Acknowledgements can take place for substantially all communications sent from the mobile device to the base station (e.g., on the reverse link). Also, a channel can be established for each communication between the mobile device and base station or can be persistent to some extent as not to require establishment for each communication.